Extended human exploration missions, such as those planned for Mars and other nearby planetary bodies, will require improved technologies for medical diagnosis and corresponding medical intervention capabilities, because of mission duration (measured in years or decades), distance from the Earth, and the environmental risks involved. Serious health problems that develop on such missions may interfere with mission objectives and could produce mission failure, if capabilities for prompt diagnoses and intervention are not available.
For such missions, performance of rigorous pre-flight medical screening may minimize the risk of serious diseases and injuries. However, such screening cannot eliminate the risk that a serious health condition or injury will occur. Occurrence of known and unknown environmental hazards confronted in space, including but not limited to radiation and loss of bone function in a microgravity environment, cannot be reliably predicted. Medical diagnosis on a future deep space mission (e.g., to Mars and return) must be autonomous and self-sufficient, because of the great distance from an origin on Earth and from interactive health care.
What is needed is an autonomous medical system that anticipates and provides means for diagnosing substantially all serious medical conditions that may arise on a well defined mission. Preferably, the medical system should provide sufficient flexibility that the system can be modified to handle other medical conditions that were not originally anticipated.